Britain is plucky, but national morale is low

In the absence of a vision of the country’s future, it is risky to rely on people’s resilience to beat Covid-19

The current Covid-19 crisis has prompted many wartime parallels. Coronavirus is the enemy; the nation is at war; it is a generational challenge; and the National Health Service is on the front line. It is a war we will win. Victory will derive from a combination of clever science, the innate pluckiness of the nation and the remarkable human quality of our medical professionals. I absolutely agree.

But I sense a need for caution with the idea that collective national stoicism alone will equip us for what the future holds. And I question that the nation’s current morale gives us the winning edge we need. Indeed, I think that, for the moment at least, the nation’s morale is somewhat suspect.

Morale, I fear, is a much misunderstood concept. In various operational roles over the years, I often hosted visits by politicians who, very honourably, wanted to boost the troops’ morale. They believed that some inspiring words would do the trick. Sometimes, however, things went badly wrong: the troops were decidedly glum and the politicians appropriately disappointed. “Why is morale so low?” they would ask.

I would then try to explain that there was nothing wrong with their morale. But, to a military mind, morale was not a measurement on some form of happiness index. Happiness is a transitory sensation, one that can turn on the performance of the cookhouse at lunchtime or the football scores on a weekend.

Morale is different. It is a far more fundamental quality, best defined as the ability of an institution or nation to endure in adversity. In the Armed Forces, building good morale is the work of years, not moments. It is based on spiritual, intellectual and material factors. Such things as strong but caring leadership; tradition; hard training; good kit; and, perhaps most important of all, a belief in the mission and a collective trust that the plan to achieve that mission is a good one.

Judged against the military meaning of the term, I think the morale of our nation is fragile. In recent years, it has been seriously damaged by a combination of many things: political acrimony; the tensions within the Union; the domination of woke agendas; and the maldistribution of wealth and opportunity within society. Even the national embarrassments of our railway system and our national air carrier have had a corrosive effect.

Most significant of all in the context of the present crisis, however, is that it is not remotely clear that our country has a vision, or a plan to achieve it. This absence of a collective national vision and a strategy to realise it combine to undermine our belief in ourselves.

The immediate priority must be defeating coronavirus – and building public trust around a plan to do so. But, as much as I would like to think otherwise, even after the present crisis is over, I do not believe that Britain will be an easy place in which to live.

So, when coronavirus is defeated – as it will be – the Government needs to consider how best to rebuild the nation’s morale. It could start with restoring the integrity of political leadership; investing in our national institutions; improving key infrastructure and emergency services; and establishing greater social fairness and cohesion. But, most of all, we need a wider national vision that restores a sense of collective purpose.

I say all this not out of some nostalgic desire to reinvent Britain’s former glories. I say it rather for the highly practical purpose of providing society with the resilience it will need to confront future challenges. The world has become a more insidious place. We don’t have that many friends. Our enemies will target the resilience of our society and our way of life in ever more mendacious ways.

Good morale, in the way that the military understand it, will be the essential factor that allows us to survive and to flourish as a nation; and, as the battle against coronavirus is already showing, few nations have such innately strong human qualities on which to build, nor a greater heritage on which to draw.

But morale needs to be built by design, not left to the chance outcomes of the cookhouse, the football results or a few well intentioned speeches.